Heat-insulating wall for a refrigerating device

ABSTRACT

A heat-insulating wall for a refrigerating device having an exterior wall and an interior wall that delimit a cavity including a heat-insulating layer. A profile element is arranged, at least from region to region, between respective lateral edges of the exterior wall and/or the interior wall to increase the inherent rigidity of the heat-insulating wall.

The invention relates to a heat-insulating wall for a refrigerating device as claimed in the preamble of claim 1. Such a wall can be for example a door or housing wall of a refrigerator or freezer.

In the field of refrigerating devices such walls generally have a solid exterior wall formed from metal sheet and a deep-drawn interior wall made of plastic, connected together at their edges to bound a cavity. This cavity is filled with a foam material to form an insulating layer. This structure is very simple but the demands on such walls are very high because of the field of use and the competition.

The heat-insulating walls used in refrigerating devices have to have a certain stability, since they have to be suitable for bearing an often considerable weight, as the compartment bases, on which the chilled goods are supported, are generally secured to the interior walls of the housing walls of refrigerating devices. Also door tray elements tailored to the interior wall are often attached to the refrigerating device door, allowing small items or bottles to be stored on the inside of the door.

There is an enormous price pressure for domestic appliances in which heat-insulating walls are deployed. The appliances and thus also their components have to be increasingly favorable both in respect of material costs and assembly. Every effort is therefore made to keep the material component as small as possible. Therefore the thinnest possible metal sheets are used for the exterior walls. So that the walls still have the required stability, these relatively unstable walls are provided with stiffening rails, which extend along the walls as a whole or along particularly neuralgic regions, such as the securing regions for compartments or holders. However these rails have to be integrated in the wall or housing wall structure and secured there, which in turn means an outlay that would preferably be avoided.

The object of the invention is to provide a heat-insulating wall for a refrigerating device, which has sufficient rigidity with the smallest possible material usage.

The object is achieved according to the invention by a heat-insulating wall for a refrigerating device with the features of claim 1.

According to the invention planar components of the heat-insulating wall are profiled at least in parts. Profiling is used for load-bearing parts such as the exterior and/or interior wall, which can be made more rigid by profiling, so that sufficient stability of the heat-insulating wall can be achieved with few material requirements, without additional stiffening elements, such as stiffening rails, having to be used. The profiling means that extremely thin material-saving exterior and/or interior walls can be used, which are nevertheless able to construct a rigid wall, which is suitable for use as a holder for supports for chilled goods shelves, such as compartment bases or door trays.

The metal sheets of the heat-insulating wall are preferably profiled at least in parts. The surface of the exterior wall of the refrigerating device housing or the refrigerating device door is often formed from metal, steel or stainless steel. These metal sheets are particularly suitable for the introduction of surface profiles. Profiling can take place particularly advantageously by means of profile rollers as part of the manufacturing process of the metal sheets. Profiling of the exterior wall also has the advantage that the refrigerating device can be individualized from an aesthetic point of view.

In one preferred embodiment longitudinal profiles are used, which extend over the height of the wall. This gives the heat-insulated walls greater inherent rigidity, particularly in the direction of gravity, which is the main action direction of the forces caused by the chilled goods shelves secured to the wall.

In one preferred embodiment the profiled wall is configured as a trapezoidal or rectangular wall. This means that the profiling, at least in parts, produces a planar pattern on the wall, which in the wall cross-section resembles an oblique line consisting of a row of trapezoidal or rectangular elements. In particular the trapezoidal structure of the profiling gives the wall a particularly high level of rigidity.

In a further advantageous embodiment the profiling is in wave form, so that in cross-section the profiled wall shows a wavy or curved line. This form of profiling produces a rather less stable wall than profiling with angular lines but the wall is easier to clean, as a wave surface has no edges but is relatively smooth.

Preferably at least 60% of a wall surface is profiled. This means that the inherent rigidity is increased over the majority of the wall surface of an exterior and/or interior wall so that there is no need for additional stiffening elements. The wall as a whole can thus take on the functionality of a load-bearing wall and it is also stable enough to have chilled goods shelves secured to it even though the wall thickness is extremely thin. The peripheral regions of the wall surface are preferably not profiled, so that simple connections between the walls or to other components of the heat-insulating wall can be established on this smooth surface.

The profilings preferably extend over the entire wall surface. This is often the simplest to manufacture, as for example, when introducing profiling by means of rolling technology, the entire wall can simply be passed through the same profile roller, which is ideally designed so that it can profile different lengths of walls of different refrigerating device models.

In a further preferred embodiment the profilings are located predominantly in the regions of the exterior and/or interior wall of a heat-insulating wall, with which securing means for chilled goods shelves, such as compartment bases or door trays or similar, engage. Increased wall stability is often necessary in such regions, to resist deformation of the heat-insulating wall due to the action of the force of the weight of the loaded chilled goods shelves. The material strength of the wall must then be so strong that the inherent rigidity of the wall is sufficient to ensure the bearing function of the wall per se and/or this can be achieved by way of stiffening elements, with the profiling providing additional rigidity in neuralgic regions.

This means that only parts of the wall are profiled, the remainder of the wall being smooth and therefore easier to look after.

Further details and advantages of the invention will emerge from the subclaims in conjunction with the description of an exemplary embodiment, which is explained in detail in relation to a drawing, in which:

FIG. 1 shows a schematic sectional diagram of an exterior wall of a door according to the prior art,

FIG. 2 shows a schematic sectional diagram of a profiled exterior wall of a door and

FIG. 3 shows a schematic view of a profiled refrigerator door.

FIG. 1 shows a section through a refrigerator door 1 of the prior art, having a plastic interior wall 2 formed by deep-drawing, a heat insulating layer 3 and an exterior wall 4 connected to the interior wall 2 to form a door unit. The exterior wall 4, which is formed from steel sheet, is connected to the interior wall 2 by the wetting action of the insulating layer 3 formed by polyethane foam in the intermediate space bounded by the interior wall 2 and the exterior wall 4 to form a structure with a rigid form. Stiffening rails 5 a, 5 b, 5 c and 5 d are generally formed in the foamed insulating layer 3, giving the refrigerator door 1 sufficient stability, even though both the plastic interior wall 2 and the steel exterior wall 4 are configured to be extremely thin and material-saving. This known structure is the basis of the invention. It requires improvement primarily because the introduction of reinforcing elements like the steel rails 5 a, 5 b, 5 c and 5 d in the manufacturing process is relatively complex and therefore increases the costs of such a refrigerator door 1 unnecessarily.

The inventive refrigerator door 1 shown in FIG. 2 is also made up of a plastic interior wall 2, an exterior door wall 4 formed from metal sheet and a foam insulating layer 3 introduced between these. However there is no need for the stiffening elements 5 a to 5 d shown in FIG. 1 with this refrigerator door 1, as the exterior door wall 4 has profilings 6, which give the refrigerator door 1 the required inherent rigidity. The profiling of the exterior wall 4 can be produced for example as part of the production process by means of profile rollers, which press the rectangular profiles into the steel sheet of the exterior wall 4.

The profilings 6 run over the entire length of the exterior wall 4 of the refrigerator door 1, as shown in FIG. 3. This extended pattern of longitudinal rectangular profiles 6 produces a profile element 7, which encompasses the entire exterior wall 4 of the refrigerator door 1. These profilings 6 give the exterior wall 4 and therefore the refrigerator door 1 as a whole a rigidity and stability that are much greater than those provided by the wall thickness of the exterior wall 4 alone in the direction of gravity, ensuring that chilled goods shelves (not shown here) can be attached to the interior door wall 2 without overloading the refrigerator door 1 in the process

LIST OF REFERENCE CHARACTERS

-   1 Refrigerator door -   2 Interior wall -   3 Insulating layer -   4 Exterior wall -   5 Stiffening rail -   6 Rectangular profiling -   7 Profile element 

1-12. (canceled)
 13. A heat-insulating wall for a refrigerating device, comprising: an exterior wall; an interior wall, the exterior wall and the interior wall delimiting a cavity; a heat-insulating layer disposed in the cavity; a profile element arranged, at least from region to region, between respective lateral edges of at least one of the exterior wall and the interior wall to increase an inherent rigidity of the heat-insulating wall.
 14. The heat-insulating wall of claim 13, wherein the heat-insulating wall is a door of a built-in refrigerating device.
 15. The heat-insulating wall of claim 13, comprising a plurality of profile elements arranged, at least from region to region, between the respective lateral edges of the at least one of the exterior wall and the interior wall to increase the inherent rigidity of the heat-insulating wall.
 16. The heat-insulating wall of claim 15, wherein respective ones of the plurality of profile elements adjoin one another and form a surface of the heat-insulating wall between lateral edges of the heat-insulating wall.
 17. The heat-insulating wall of claim 13, wherein the at least one of the exterior wall and the interior wall is made of metal.
 18. The heat-insulating wall of claim 13, wherein the at least one of the exterior wall and the interior all is made of plastic.
 19. The heat-insulating wall of claim 13, wherein the profile element has longitudinal profilings that run in vertical direction when the heat-insulating wall is built into the refrigeration device.
 20. The heat-insulating wall of claim 19, wherein a cross-section of the longitudinal profilings forms angular lines.
 21. The heat-insulating of claim 19, wherein a cross-section of the longitudinal profilings forms curved lines.
 22. The heat-insulating wall of claim 13, wherein the profile element extends over at least 60% of a respective wall surface of the at least one of the exterior wall and the interior wall.
 23. The heat-insulating wall of claim 22, wherein the profile element extends over an entire height of the respective wall surface of the at least one of the exterior wall and the interior wall.
 24. The heat-insulating of claim 13, wherein the profile element is located in a region of securing means for chilled goods shelves. 